UDK Pick ups

Today we added in several pick ups to our levels. I added mostly health pick ups as many objects in my level modify health.

To add them in we need to go to the actor classes tab under the content browser and click on the Pickups drop down menu.

You can add in weapon pickups, ammo pickups etc. We just need to click on the one we want and drag it in.

UDK actor classes tab and a health pick up actor class

Health vial actor classes

UDK adding sound

Today we went through the process of adding sounds into UDK.
Firstly we open the content browser and search for a sound node or cue. Cue's are similar to materials and nodes are similar to nodes.

I added in one around a water fall that I have in my level to support the illusion of running water.

sound nodes in my UDK level

At the beginning of my level I have a cinematic sequence right next these sound nodes so I wanted to be able to toggle them on and off. I achieved this by adding them in as ambient sound toggle-able.

To make them toggle on and off I went into kismet and created object variables for each and attached them to a toggle.

Kismet code for toggling sound

UDK Level to do list and wish list

These list represent the work which I want to have completed for my end of year assessment. The to do list will be the soul focus of my efforts and until it is complete the wish list will not be worked on.

To Do List:

• Planning the level/Game. (concepts)
• Identify UDK's limitations.
• Complete concept board.
• Sketch several different level ideas.
• Put more static meshes in level.

Static mesh boxes stacked on top of each other

• Add more particle systems.
• Add reacting A.I.
• Make sure lighting is appropriate/realistic.
• Add more ambient sounds.

current ambient sounds

• Add the middle cut scene and finishing cut scene.
• Test Level.
• Package Level.
• Test Level again.

Wish List:

• Making a static mesh behave like cloth.
• Make maze more complicated.

Current maze design

• Make the puzzles harder.
• Make terrain more realistic in areas.
• Replace maze chain link with solid walls.
• Add damaging fog that can be toggled.
• Blinding light at the end of final puzzle.

Work Experience Review

Over the last two weeks I have been doing work placement at Cavan Institute. At the beginning of the two weeks I was assigned to a team and we were given some time to get to know each other. After this we were given a list 20 UDK tutorials, some in text form others with just the finished code, and we were asked to convert them to video tutorials.

We started off by deciding the best approach to take and we choose to do them all as a group rather than take a few individually and go through the whole process alone.

We assigned everyone a job/roll and said that if anyone wasn't happy on the second day we would swap the jobs around and see if things improved. I was given the job of actually recording the videos and voicing over them. The other three people were give the jobs of editor, script-er and reverse engineer (for the tutorials of only finished code).

After this we started into the tutorials. I was surprised at home much easier these basic tutorials were for me to learn than at the beginning of the year. I can honestly say that over the course of the two weeks I felt I learned more about Kismet and UDK than I had through my course. That being said I think that the two weeks and the inclusive work had been more so revision than learning anything new and was therefore far easier for me to "relearn".

All of the videos that we completed are available on the Online Design Teacher YouTube channel.

Image taken off of the updated Online Design Teacher YouTube channel